Mizungu!

Today is Good Friday, and perhaps more importantly in Rwanda, marks the beginning of a national holiday week memorializing the start of the Genocide.

I passed the day touring Kigali with 3 young Rwandan physicians who are working at the Central University Hospital of Kigali (CHUK) – a Rwandan version of SF General. They were terrific hosts, and picked me up from my residence in a vintage, 1983 Toyota Corolla. The car is in excellent condition with 80k miles on the odometer, and a left-hand drive steering wheel (somewhere in Africa, there must be drivers on the wrong side of the road). The car belongs to Rajabu, a young gynecologist in training.

The tour’s first stop was the Genocide Memorial. We were disappointed to hear from the guard that the memorial had just closed. We weren’t sure if it was an official closing schedule, or that the staff wanted to take an early lunch. Next we visited the pride of Kigali – a shiny, brand new shopping mall, complete with plenty of underground parking, gourmet coffee shop, sunglass hut, and the piece de resistance – a grocery/department store to make Sam Walton proud. Despite the long aisles of fresh food and packaged goods, the store was conspicuously empty – like a ‘Safeway’ when it’s closing time and they’re locking the doors while you hurry to make your final selections. Of the handful of people shopping today, half were Westerners.

I walked away largely unsatisfied, which is the same feeling I get whenever I’m dragged to a sterile, suburban shopping mall. I asked the docs, “Isn’t there an outdoor market somewhere that’s a bit more authentic?” Rajabu turned to his friends, and in French, made some remark that contained the word ‘ordinaire’. “Yes!” I said with a smile, “Let’s go to that place.”

We drove a kilometer through town to an unmarked entrance off the paved road. Rajabu carefully navigated through the throngs of locals on foot, as we traveled the dirt road past storefront shanties jammed together. We parked the car and walked into ground zero. I followed my friends as they descended into one of the shanties. Imagine a massive wardrobe, dimly lit, full of everything you might find in a packrat’s cluttered closet. Add to that an endless maze of tight corridors, more densely packed that a kitchen at a high school keg-party, just before the cops show up.

With all the attention I drew, I might well have been Brad Pitt himself. This is where I first heard the word ‘Mizungu!’ shouted mostly by young children. ‘Mizungu’ in Swahili has several meanings – ‘white person, something remarkable, baffling.’ Laurent told me that it means ‘money.’ I smiled and thought to myself, “Johnny you’re so Mizungu, and you don’t even know it!”

Moving quickly with the children hot on our tails, Paulin smiled pointing at me and exclaimed, “THIS is why you don’t take a Mizungu to the Market Ordinaire!”

Rajabu, Paulin (anesthesiology resident) and Laurent (aspiring emergency medicine physician) know each other from medical school, and all three grew up in Eastern Congo, a mostly rural area known for it’s mineral resources, diamonds in particular. Eastern Congo has an infamous reputation for terrible civil wars, ethnic conflicts, child soldiers, militant clans, internally displaced persons and Rwandan refugees from the genocide. Many of the perpetrators of the Genocide, known as Genocidaires (Interhamwe) now live there, and their presence continues to raise ethnic tensions. My three physician friends moved to Rwanda after graduating medical school in 2002, in search of better employment opportunity, which exists in scant supply in their home towns.

Here are some interesting economics shaping the lives of a young Rwandan physicians. After taxes, they each earn a monthly income of $600 per month (this follows a significant raise from the previous salary of $200 per month). From that, rental housing costs roughly $150-200 per month. The usual living expenses add between $150 to 250 per month depending on whom you have to feed, clothe, house, ect.

Laurent, being a single guy with a small apartment, a girlfriend of 6 months, and no car, can sock away $300 per month in savings on his resident’s salary. Of this, he sends $100 to his parents who still live in eastern Congo, and keeps $200 for himself. Minus miscellaneous annual expenses, Laurent can save $2000 per year.

Rujabu, the owner of the aforementioned Toyota Corolla, moonlights at a local, private-pay clinic where he can earn $4/hr seeing patients. Today, he’s noticeably better dressed than his compadres - in pinstripe slacks, button-up shirt and shiny shoes. He works shifts at an exclusive private clinic to boost his gynecology salary. Rajabu is able to add an additional $400 to his monthly income, for a net of $1000. I imagine with the additional car expense, larger apartment, and finer luxuries, he likely saves $500 per month. He also provides money to his extended family.

Paulin, a 32 year old man, has bright eyes, a permanent grin and a wonderfully gregarious nature that makes him seem much larger than his short stature. I’m sure most of you are lucky enough to have someone like Paulin in your social circles back home. He’s the one with the right mix of enthusiasm, confidence, self-deprecation, an underdog's hopeful optimism, and a resigning smile. They're the friends we always seem to poke fun at, because we know they'll laugh, too. And somehow in the end, we'll all feel better about ourselves. When I walk with Paulin, he seems to shake hands with half the town.

Paulin is in his second year of anesthesiology training at the Central Kigali University Hospital (CHUK). He and his wife are mid-pregnancy with their first child. Hopefully, Paulin will soak up the bulk of what I have to teach in Rwanda.

Over lunch with Paulin and Laurent, I asked them some pointed questions.

To be continued….